Week # 30 ~No Way!!

Hello All,

I am feeling super great!   We are walking a lot now that we are in a ½ car & ½ walk mission area.   My ward is very nice and very friendly, so is my companion. 

So the craziest thing happened right after I emailed you last week.   You know that drunken guy that I told you about.  Well we got a call from him!!  He said he had no idea how he got home.   He found a card in his wallet (the one that we put there) and decided to call the phone number that was written on it.  It turns out that he can speak -kind of- good English, but sometimes I think he knows what more of the words then he say.  We took him on a church tour and showed him all around ward building.   He said he could play the piano, so he sat down and started to play. He was kind of bad, but we asked him how he learned to play the piano and he just said, “ok let me play another”.  We are currently teaching him and he seems really interested in the church and very willing to learn. 

During this week we have volunteered for service to get our service hours in.   We are working at the YMCA facility and also a non-profit company that builds houses.  This company sells homes for cheaper than what it cost to make the house.   We helped them with one of the houses.  Part of it was that we had the opportunity to  caulking the house. Thanks to Dad, I think that I did a pro of a job on it. It looked like a professional did it!  So I was pretty proud of myself for how well it looked. 

I got my watch fixed, the old battery they saved, they said that it still had a good charge and put it back in and it has been working fine. I also found out that you could re synchronize my watch if the hands are off.  My watch is way more complicated than I thought. 

As for pictures you asked for…I will get some for you as soon as I can.

Love, Elder Vance

I love you tons and lots and lots

My apartment-Grand Island Nebraska

Week #29 ~ Uhhh Joseph Smith?

Hello family & friends,

This is my week....

 Sunday.  Went to church feeling pretty good.   We got a couple of new people to show up and we were very excited about that. 

Monday. P-day. It was super cold outside.  It is way to cold to be walking around much. I finally got grandmas package with all of the fruit rollups and Hi-Chew in them and that super awesome tie. Please tell her thank you, it means a lot to get packages! 

Tuesday.  Was a regular day of walking, teaching and visiting.

Wednesday.  District meeting.  I gave a training on how to be better teachers by centering our teachings on the Covenants of Christ.  I think that it went super great!  I knew just what to say, but my training was cut a little short. I was supposed to have about a half hour to 20 minutes left for a roll play but our district leader said I only had about 5 minutes left.

Thursday.  I recently got a little step counter to count my steps and on average we walk about 10 miles every time we go walking around town, so that's helping me loose a couple of pounds.

Friday.  Average walking day. Cold but it helps you walk faster to stay warm. 

Saturday.  Towards the end of the day, it was dark outside. It is getting really warm, really fast here.  We took a short cut to our apartment through the mall and there were tons of people seeing movies and setting up booths in the hallways. 

            We were waiting for the cross-walk light to turn green and there was a guy on the other side of the road trying to walk across.  He did and almost got hit about 5 times.  When he got to our side I tried to give him a high five for surviving.   He grabbed me by the hand and held it and said " thank you thank you,  uhhh  joseph smith?" Pointing to our name tags.  We said, yes that we are Mormons and asked if he goes to church.   He said something incoherent and wanted something to write with to tell us his address. 

            So he started drawing squiggles and other things on the paper and he told us that it was Arabic.  He had no idea where he lived and we found out that he was completely drunk.  So we tried to help him find his home for about 2 hours.  I couldn't stop laughing, he almost passed out and fell on me.  He couldn't keep his balance even while just walking straight.  After a long while we final found his house and he went inside.  Lesson leaned…Don’t drink and walk!  Or just Don’t drink.  Hopefully we can follow up and help this man. 

and that was my week.

Love you lots,

Elder Vance

Zone Conference February 2014

Week # 28 ~What do you mean frostbite?

Hello Family,

Well this week was pretty good.  I am healthy and happy to be in Grand Island Nebraska, for some new and exciting adventures. 

My comp, Elder Bailey is super awesome, I am still trying to get the lay of the land.  But everything is just flat.  I keep looking for mountains to get my bearings, but ahhhh….. Just flat to left & flat to the right.  I will get some new batteries in my watch so that I can use the compass feature again.  I really need it to find my way around. 

Most of this week we did our usual knocking doors and doing visits.  Until it came to be Thursday.  On Thursday we got a text from a guy in our ward saying that today with the wind chill will be around -20 degrees.   He told us that we shouldn't go out walking in weather like that because a person can get frostbite within an hour of being outside.  We are now in a ½ walk ½ drive mission.  We share the car with another set of missionaries.  So we stayed inside and got rides to visit people.  The rest of the time we were inside of our apartment either studying or playing around. 

Sunday.  We got four less active and two new investigators to church and we were very ecstatic about this.  It is a great opportunity to teach more lessons.  We are grateful!

Love Elder Vance